At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't

By JIM RUTENBERG

Published: April 29, 2002

Joseph A. Cafasso knows people -- retired admirals, generals, government officials. More to the point, he has said, he knows his way around the netherworld of counterintelligence through contacts he built during a sterling career as a lieutenant colonel in the Special Forces.

The Fox News Channel thought it had found an asset when it hired the gruff, barrel-chested former military man as a consultant to help in its coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan. He claimed to have won the Silver Star for bravery, served in Vietnam and was part of the secret, failed mission to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980.

For more than four months, Mr. Cafasso assisted and shared tips with reporters, producers and on-air consultants. Then on March 11, he abruptly left Fox amid complaints that he had overstepped his bounds and had become an annoyance. Soon afterward, Fox News, and many associates of Mr. Cafasso, learned that his office style may have been the least of his problems. The real story, many people say, was that he was not who he said he was.

He released a statement on Sunday in which he said he was the victim of a ''gossip campaign'' by ''self-centered individuals with their own political agendas.''

People at Fox News had taken his credentials at face value. So had the presidential campaign of Patrick J. Buchanan, for which he was an organizer; WABC radio in New York; and several representatives, military officials and activists to whom he had sold himself for years. But records indicate that his total military experience was 44 days of boot camp at Fort Dix, N.J., in May and June 1976, and his honorable discharge as a private, first class.

Mr. Cafasso had promised to appear at The New York Times to provide documents contradicting records that he only served in boot camp but never appeared. Military officials said they had no record of anyone named Joseph Cafasso retiring as an lieutenant colonel.

Mr. Cafasso, it appears, has used his story of battlefield glories to make friends, find work, and perhaps most importantly, find acceptance among people who walk the fringes of Washington's power corridors, networking his way through a community of retired military officers to arrive at Fox News.

Fox News would not be the first news organization to be deceived. The New York Times in March reported the account of a former Russian army officer who said he fled the fighting in Chechnya in 1999 to escape pressure to kill civilians. On Saturday, The Times quoted Russian officials and acquaintances as saying he was not serving in the army at the time.

Fox News executives acknowledged that they now think that Mr. Cafasso was not who he said he was. But they said that the information he gathered never led to any known mistakes and that he had a network of military sources -- built, apparently, on the strength of his stories.

Whatever the case, Mr. Cafasso seemed to have contacts where network reporters had few, they said, and he worked long hours, often helping the network penetrate the secrecy that shrouds the Pentagon.

Mr. Cafasso was introduced to the network shortly after the start of the military campaign in Afghanistan by retired generals whom he accompanied to Fox's offices in Washington, where they appeared as commentators. Executives said Mr. Cafasso seemed to be a consultant, briefing the generals on developments in Afghanistan. As he spent more time at Fox deciphering military movements, the executives eventually felt compelled to hire him as a consultant for $200 a week.

One senior Fox executive said Mr. Cafasso was so convincing and seemed to have such respected patrons at the Pentagon that there was no reason to question him. ''He was so confident,'' the executive said. ''The sheer brazeness of it is just remarkable.''

The executive added that Mr. Cafasso was hired because of his contacts, not necessarily his military background. ''Joe was just plugged in everywhere,'' the executive said. ''He appeared to be able to call almost any military base and have a friend there.''

Executives at Fox said Mr. Cafasso often worked late hours chasing leads through his sources, setting up interviews with military officials and offering guidance to producers trying to understand the foggy Afghan battlefield. He developed skills on the network's graphics computer -- used for on-screen maps -- and prepared briefing packages with news clippings for commentators.

''He knew more about the military and the Pentagon than most reporters we deal with,'' said a military officer at the Defense Department who was surprised to hear that he was not a decorated veteran.

He also had a good sense of military spin, counseling the Fox staff to be cautious about Pentagon claims in December that troops had Osama Bin Laden cornered. He quoted sources as telling him that Mr. Bin Laden could easily escape through the mountains, which has been raised as one possibility of what may have happened.

Fox executives conceded that one piece of advice from Mr. Cafasso could have saved the network considerable embarrassment, if it had acted on it. In February, Fox and ABC erroneously reported that the body of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been found, based largely on information from a police official in Karachi, Pakistan.